


Cold

by akh



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 20:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14340186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akh/pseuds/akh
Summary: Five times Hecate felt cold (or something like it) and one time she felt completely warm. A companion to season 2 finale.





	Cold

_i._

She can remember, vaguely, the first time she set her feet on the cold floors of Broom's Hallow - the old, drafty house that belonged to her great aunt Hypate. She had not been more than four or five years old when that house had become her permanent home, too young to know the necessary spells to fend off the cold that seemed to permanently inhabit the ancient building.

She can remember with clarity the feeling of chill that would come at night when aunt Hypate would retire to bed, putting out all fires in the house as she went, except for the one in her own room.

“A witch will make herself feel warm, Hecate,” she would say by way of bidding good night, her tall and imposing figure towering over young Hecate. “Are you or are you not a witch?”

Hecate would go to bed cold, but with a spark of determination ignited within her. She would learn until she would never have to feel cold again.

_ii._

Hecate is sixteen when the news of aunt Hypate’s passing reach her. Her feelings for her great aunt have never been particularly warm, but she feels a chill run through her spine as Miss Vespera sits her down after a lesson of spell science and imparts the news.

Hecate has no recollection of ever having had what most would consider a proper childhood, but she remembers that day as the end of what she had considered hers.

Broom's Hallow had never been a warm or welcoming house, nor had aunt Hypate ever been a warm or welcoming witch, but it had been the closest thing she had known to what passed for a home, or a family, and she had learned a great deal while under the old witch’s care.

_iii._

As a grown witch, Hecate rarely allows any form of chill to creep into her body. If the weather is cold, or her rooms are cold, there is always a spell to warm her up, or a fire to be conjured with a snap of her fingers. A witch, after all, will always make herself feel warm.

That is, of course, unless she chooses otherwise.

Hecate’s first summer at Cackle’s is a hot one. As a witch naturally disposed to feel too cold rather than too warm without interference, she doesn’t mind the heat - welcomes it even as a break from needing to maintain her warmth by magical effort. It doesn’t, however, take long for Hecate to observe that the long, hot days are having a very different effect on the headmistress’s daughter who, along with her mother, spends most of the summer at the Academy - as does Hecate who, between her studies and teaching, has never made herself a permanent home elsewhere.

She is perfectly well aware that how her colleagues feel about the weather is absolutely no concern of hers, but it is only so long she can turn a blind eye to Ada’s discomfort without actively ignoring her entire presence. It is of no help that, more often than not, Ada's company in the otherwise deserted academy is almost inescapable.

One evening, as they have both retired to the library for study, she watches Ada put down her book with a heavy sigh before walking past Hecate on her way towards the window.

“You don’t mind, do you?” she asks, her voice weary, hand already poised to push the window open.

Hecate looks up from her book as if she had not already been surreptitiously observing her study companion and then shakes her head slowly.

“By all means,” she says, betraying no interest in the matter, “but you might do better with a cooling charm. The nights don’t seem to get much cooler than the days now.”

Ada smiles wearily as she returns to her seat, the window now open but the room hardly any cooler, just as Hecate had predicted. “It’s not the same as real air,” she sighs, letting her eyes rest on Hecate for a moment, taking in the appearance of the younger witch in her heavy, black, full-length dress. Then she ventures a small smile and shakes her head in wonder. “I do envy your ability to tolerate this heat, Hecate.”

Hecate starts a little at the use of her given name, a sign of familiarity not unwelcome but still so rare she is not yet entirely accustomed to it. For her first year, she has mostly kept to herself, socialising with the rest of the staff only when required to do so, but she knows that to keep such strictly professional distance in the summer, under their present living circumstances, would only appear unnecessarily cold.

“It’s not much to envy,” Hecate replies simply, not sure how else to respond, her mind already engaged in a plan that has just begun to form. “...Ada,” she adds almost too late, as an afterthought, and quickly fixes her eyes back on her book, missing the pleased expression that spreads on her colleague’s face at the sound of her own name.

The next day, Hecate sets to work in her potions lab, soon so engrossed in her experiments that it is only when she hears a soft knock on her door that she realises the entire day has passed and she has missed both lunch and dinner.

Lunch she misses often, but dinner rarely, and so she is not altogether surprised to find Alma Cackle behind her door, carrying a tray and wearing a concerned expression.

Hecate accepts the headmistress’s gentle reprimand that comes with the bowl of soup on the tray - a reminder from Alma to take better care of herself. 

“I’m sorry,” Hecate apologises as she places the bowl on her desk. “Sometimes I don’t notice the pass of time when I start experimenting.”

Alma nods and smiles. “Ada can be like that when she gets lost in her spells.” She pauses at the door and sniffs the air. “Anything special you’re working on?”

“Oh...nothing….just an idea I wanted to try,” Hecate stumbles on her words, moving to stand in front of her cauldron, a little protective. “I don’t know if anything will become of it.”

Alma accepts her response without further inquiry and nods, then bids her teacher good night. If the the older witch notices the cool breeze emanating from the cauldron brewing behind Hecate, she exits the room without saying anything about it.

  


The next morning, Hecate finds a secluded corner on the grounds of the castle and sprinkles her finished potion, first on the ground, and then in the air around her, watches with satisfaction as frost quickly sweeps over the grass and white clouds begin forming above her head. When the first snowflakes land on her skin, she allows herself a small smile of victory before going in search of the person it is all for, wondering if she hasn’t overstepped some boundary that had better been left uncrossed.

After all, they are not that close, her and Ada. Friendly, for sure, often finding themselves reading together in the library after hours, when the rest of the academy has gone to sleep, but this...this is something Hecate would not even have considered doing for any of the other teachers.

The fact that she has chosen to do so for Ada is something Hecate finds vaguely troubling, even though she cannot name any specific reason for it. If anything, this act of solidarity should make perfect sense. Ada has always been nothing but kind to her, especially making sure Hecate felt welcome and at ease on her first arrival, and there has been precious little so far that Hecate has been able to do in return. A witch should always repay her debts, as aunt Hypate had said, so was this not merely a payment of that debt?

Whatever her own misgivings might be, however, Hecate soon finds that at least she has no cause to worry about Ada’s reaction. Ada’s shriek of delight when she sees the little corner of winter Hecate has created, is all the approval Hecate could have wished for, and better still is the blissful smile on Ada’s face as she stands under the cloud and lets the soft flakes of snow dance on her skin.

“How did you do this?” Ada turns her beaming face to Hecate, and for a moment Hecate forgets every ingredient she had put into her potion, every step of stirring and boiling and cooling in between.

“It feels so real,” Ada marvels.

“It’s, um...magic,” Hecate replies stiffly, pressing her fingers tightly together before flexing them all out again.

Ada chuckles, still shaking her head in wonder, and somehow Hecate knows that she is not laughing _at_ her. What she is looking at, is simply Ada’s joy in its purest form.

As she stands by the edge of her own creation, watching Ada kneel down on the ground to arrange the fallen snow into beautiful turrets of various designs, Hecate allows the chill of winter to creep into her bones. It’s almost enough to disguise the alarming warmth spreading yet deeper within her.

 

_iv._

The chill she feels after the death of the founding stone is unlike anything Hecate has ever experienced. Even the memory of aunt Hypate’s house feels warm in comparison.

At first, it comes in waves, rippling through her with ever increasing power as the freeze spreads over the castle. Then it stings like shards of ice pressed against her skin, cold and unforgiving.

In the end, she isn’t even sure whether it is the room freezing around her, or the debilitating feeling of not being able to perform magic, combined with the cold dread of perhaps never being able to again, that causes the chill that eventually spreads through her entire body.

Perhaps there is no distinction between the two. Perhaps at root they are one and same, attacking her from within as well as without.

She can feel the cold draining her magic away, and the physical pain of it is agonizing in ways Hecate has never known. She has felt magic humming through her veins her entire life, even before she knew any spells to channel it through, and has no memory of a time when she wasn’t acutely aware of it. To not feel any of it now, is as if a part of her has been extricated.

 

The little spark of magic that Maud finds, secured in an old, abandoned bottle, carries a whisper of warmth within it, and when Hecate takes the bottle into her hands to examine the contents, she presses her cold fingers against the length of the glass, painfully aware it could be the last bit of warmth, the last bit of magic, she will ever feel.

She can tell at once that the tiny spark is only enough to maybe send one of them away and, that being the case, she knows in her heart there is only one candidate for the attempt. Because of course it has to be Ada. To save the girls must be paramount, but to choose only one of the two would be impossible, and there is no one better than Ada to help Mildred and Ethel reignite the stone, if such a thing is even possible. What remains for Hecate, is to use whatever remains of her own magic to make sure Ada gets out safely.

She notices the silence in the room soon after privately arriving at her own conclusion. All eyes on her.

“It’s the only way and you know it.” Ada’s voice is gentle but persuasive and the realization that a different consensus has been reached hits Hecate with a force that feels like an almost unbearable addition to the pain she is already in.

_No, Ada_ , Hecate’s eyes implore as she looks at her partner, shaking her head. _No._

But there is no way out of it.

Ada’s hands feel inexplicably warm as they close around Hecate’s, reassuring, and Hecate knows that she, too, can feel the warmth that only the contact of skin on skin can create. It’s not the spark of dying magic trapped in the bottle, but a spark of something much older and much stronger. 

“Good luck, Hecate,” Ada says, her steady voice anchoring Hecate in the moment, the three simple words containing everything they don’t have time to express to each other. _Good luck with this task. Good luck with your life if all you can do is save yourself and the girls._

As if there could ever be a life for her without Ada in it.

But there is no time to protest. Hecate can only respond in kind, trying to condense the enormity of everything she feels into three, short words:

“Thank you, Ada,” she mouths, her voice barely breaking above a whisper. _Thank you for everything you have been to me and for everything we have been together._

_I love you._

She tries to smile, to pretend that this is not a goodbye, but the attempt falters on her lips too quickly to work as the reassurance she had intended.

The last she sees of Ada is the look of encouragement and faith in those blue eyes as Hecate feels the familiar tingle of the transfer spell taking hold of her molecules. Then the room slowly fades from her view and the words of love and protection tied into Ada’s spell carry her through the darkness that engulfs her.

 

_v._

She had thought she would never experience a coldness worse than that inside the frozen potions lab, all magic drained from around her, and nearly all drained from within her, but it is nothing to the sudden chill that pierces through her heart and rattles her entire body as she stands by the gates of the school, helplessly watching Mildred Hubble disappear into the castle, too weak to even attempt running after the girl.

_“It was worth it.”_ Ada’s voice, impossibly near and yet somehow more distant than it has ever been rings in Hecate’s ears and she knows, _knows_ , with every aching fibre of her being that Ada’s light, her magic, has gone out.

_No_. Hecate swallows, somehow, inexplicably, still breathing, still able to move even as everything in her feels as frozen as Ada must now be. The chill she had felt only moments before while still inside the building seems trifling now in comparison. This cold, here, in a world without Ada, is dark and unforgiving, emanating not from the frozen stone, but from her own heart, spreading through her body like an all consuming frost.

“Miss Hardbroom?” Esmerelda’s voice breaks through the haze that Hecate’s mind has succumbed into and when she focuses her gaze, she finds the eyes of all the Hallow girls on her, wonders vaguely how she must appear to them now, but not quite able to bring herself to care.

“The stone,” she says flatly, defeat having taken over all desperation in her. “Do you know how to ignite it?”

When the ice finally covers her in the tower, the founding stone almost within her reach, so close and yet so far, it adds nothing to the cold that has long since overtaken her. All it brings is numbness that feels almost welcome.

 

_+i._

Everything about Ada is warm as they lay together, huddled under the covers in her bed, the embers of a fire glowing in the fireplace, casting an orange hue in the otherwise dark room.

“I heard you, you know,” Hecate says, running her fingers through Ada’s silver hair, a touch of admonishment in her voice.

It’s dark, but Hecate can see the momentary look of confusion on Ada’s face soon melt into a smile.

“I wasn’t sure you would,” she replies, shifting a little. “I felt no magic in me, but there was something…”

“You should have spared your strength,” Hecate reprimands her gently when Ada pauses in the middle of her sentence. “You could have lasted longer.”

Ada shakes her head, reaching out a hand to run a finger down Hecate’s jaw.

“No, my love, I couldn’t have,” she says. “My magic had already run out, I was certain of it.”

Hecate frowns. “But then how…?”

She had heard Ada's voice from a distance it should not have been audible without the assistance of some form of magic.

“I believe the magic I felt was yours...or ours, to be specific,” Ada says thoughtfully, her voice a little hesitant. “Perhaps some residue of the spell I used to send your from that room, or perhaps…”

She pauses again, contemplative.

“What is it Ada?”

“You will think I’m being silly,” she replies as she takes a lock of Hecate’s long hair between her fingers and starts playing with it, considers herself quite privileged to be able to do so on any given day, but especially tonight.

Hecate looks at her for a moment, serious.

“I won’t,” she assures her when Ada meets her eyes again.

Ada remains silent for a beat.

“Well,” she starts at last, still twirling Hecate’s hair around her index finger. “You know how they say that love in itself carries magic that even the wisest scholars haven’t been able to quantify or define?”

Hecate nods her head slowly, aware that the theory exists, but not quite ready to either agree or disagree. Normally, she might have dismissed the suggestion as humbug, but she had felt the impossible warmth of Ada’s hands when they had touched in the frozen room. She had thought it had been simply their remaining magic joined together causing the additional spark of warmth, but she had never been able to fully reconcile the sum of their failing magic to the strength of the effect.

Until this conversation, she had also believed that Ada’s final words had been delivered to her ears by one last push of Ada’s own magic, but she trusted Ada to know better when her magic had run out. 

“You do think it’s silly,” Ada’s voice pulls Hecate from her thoughts and she realises she has still not said anything.

In no hurry to commit to a response, she props herself up on one elbow and studies Ada’s face for a moment, her heart leaping at the endearing way in which the other witch bites her lip while waiting for Hecate to speak. In that moment, it’s hard for her not to believe that the love she feels for this woman isn’t magical in its own right, independent of the magic they both possess on their own.

“Well,” she says at last, leaning in to plant a soft kiss on Ada’s forehead, and then another on the tip of her nose. “There might be no scientific evidence for what you are suggesting, Miss Cackle,” she draws out her words, “but I for one have far too much respect for magic in general to ever presume to know everything about how it works.”

Ada’s face lights up at Hecate’s words.

“Well, Miss Hardbroom,” she says, a little breathless. “As I am familiar with your rigorous work ethic, may I suggest we set out to look for some evidence right now?”

Hecate can’t help but smirk at the corny line that even Ada chuckles at almost as soon as the words are spoken, but tonight of all nights, she is more than willing to play along. With a flick of her fingers, she redoubles the protective spells surrounding Ada’s chambers and then leans in to aim her next kiss on Ada’s lips.

“Let’s get to it, then, Miss Cackle.”


End file.
